


Normal

by ssa_archivist



Category: Smallville
Genre: Angst, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-10-18
Updated: 2003-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-01 04:40:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/352032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssa_archivist/pseuds/ssa_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sixth in the Away series. Victoria makes Lex feel normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Normal

## Normal

by Lux

[]()

* * *

Sixth in the Away series, follows 'Alone'. 

Feedback: it makes my day. 

Many heartfelt thanks, as usual, to my untiring betas Moss and Jen. 

* * *

"Happy birthday, Lex," Victoria said, propping herself up against the pillow. The sheets slid down, uncovering her breasts. "I hope you appreciated my gift." She lit the joint and took a drag. She exhaled, giggling. "You must be a natural. Are you sure you were virgin?" 

"Why should I have lied?" Lex retorted, lacing his fingers beneath his neck. 

Seventeen years old and a man at last. No, he hadn't lied. Not this time. He considered this to be his baptism of fire. The first time he hadn't played the girl role. The first time he had really been in command. 

He didn't even know how to name what he had done with his father and Jim and Burke. Now that he had been with a woman he was normal, wasn't he? Finally normal. 

"In order to surprise me?" Victoria hazarded. 

"I thought _I_ was the guest of honor here." 

"Sure you are." 

Victoria started to pass the joint to him. Lex shook his head. "I don't smoke. Pot nor cigarettes." 

"Never? Really?" She sounded astonished. 

"I suffered from asthma. The mere idea of inhaling smoke takes my breath away." 

Victoria faked a pout. "What about me? Didn't I take your breath away?" 

"Of course," Lex gave her a leering smile. "But I would never give you up." 

He didn't remember much. He had desperately downed a few drinks and taken amphetamines in order to fight the fear that he would fail her, that he wouldn't be physically up to his task. 

It wasn't so easy with a woman as it was with men. You couldn't just lie there and wait. Your body had to respond. It _had_ to. It had to last for her. But he remembered he had done it, and he had done it well. Remembered he had enjoyed it, too. And Victoria's compliments made him feel good. Now he really was like the other boys. His father would be proud of him. 

He hadn't seen Lionel since that day at the hospital. He had not even heard from him. He had just received the notification, after a month in the mental institution, that he would be moved to an English boarding school, as planned, until the end of the year. Then, if he behaved properly, he could come back to the United States. The message was typed. It hadn't even been signed. 

If it had been necessary, this would have confirmed he hadn't been sent to the clinic in order to be cured, but to be punished. If he had ever been sick, he surely couldn't have been considered well at the end of the damned month. 

After Burke and Leon had attacked him, he had clammed up. He hadn't talked to the doctor anymore. He hadn't talked anymore, period. He had simply stayed where they put him, silent, motionless, safely frozen in a sort of catatonic state, until one of the nurses had gently spoken into his ear and placed in his hand his father's card. 

He had been terror-stricken as the chauffeur directly drove him from the clinic to the airport. The terror had continued to fill him on the plane, as he stood before the dark, austere wall of the school, and as he had started all over again. Even so, little by little, he had realized this was exactly what he needed: to start all over again. 

They didn't know him here. Didn't know he had always been a misfit. Didn't know he had been in a fucking rehab, or at least, they pretended not to know. And apparently they didn't even care about his freakish looks. Strangely enough, some girls had shown interest in him, and this must have convinced the boys he was okay. Or, perhaps, he was becoming too old to be bullied. In any case, for the first time in his life, he had fit in easily. 

He had never been in a co-ed school before, and he had felt awkward and uncomfortable at first. But now he was getting used to it. He loved it, really. The girls were even too bold to his taste, but he felt comfortable enough with them, although not as much as with older women. He wondered if his father had this in mind when he had chosen Holy Souls Boarding School. Could be. He never left anything to chance. 

Lex's unexpected success had made him more daring, and had led him to make friends with boys, too. At first he had feared they would ask him for something more, he had shrunk and felt ashamed at every casual contact, every pat, every handshake. But nothing bad had happened. They were just school chums, the ones he had never had before. Superficial relationships, of course, just a middle step between the previous state of isolation and the true, intimate friendship that surely would lead to rejection. Even if he could listen to his schoolmates confidences, he couldn't open, couldn't be sincere, couldn't make himself vulnerable by throwing off the mask he always wore when he wasn't alone. At Holy Souls, he was Cool Lex, the smart, American rich boy who always had a ready answer, who could put everybody in their place by dint of his sarcasm, who wore designer clothes, who was always willing to help his friends by means of money and cleverness. They sought him, and this made him feel good, appreciated, normal. 

He still couldn't believe they liked him. Still couldn't believe a girl could be attracted to him. Even now, while he was in bed with one. A gorgeous one, at that. 

Yes, Victoria was a well-known slut, a regular of the boys' dormitory, but she was very choosy. Having had sex with her would make him go up several rungs on the ladder of popularity. Besides, she was really beautiful, and, somehow, Lex felt close to her. 

Of course, he didn't love her. He didn't even know how to approach the girls he really was attracted to. He couldn't have risked a serious relationship with them, anyway. But he felt he and Victoria had something in common. The way she talked of her father, her father's absence, moved something in him. Her desperate attempts to draw attention reminded him of his own, as did the mask of coolness and indifference under which she concealed them. 

Victoria stubbed out her joint against the Vesuvius stone on his nightstand and reached down to kiss him. He parted his lips and responded appropriately, as she liked and expected. She loved kissing, and had taught him well. He still hated it. It was such an intimate gesture... It made him feel vulnerable. Made him feel violated, somehow. But he had learnt to do it well, and to even feign pleasure. Had learnt to will himself to calm down and keep his hands from curling tight. It wasn't that difficult, for someone who had done nothing else but lie and pretend for years. 

_It was an accident. It has been an accident. It will be an accident. It's going to be an accident_. 

"It's time for you to go," he said dryly, as soon as she pulled away, resting her head on his chest. He just couldn't help it. He had already waited too long, and was afraid he wouldn't be able to conceal his anxiety any longer. He had started to fear she was going to spend all night in his bed. 

Victoria frowned, looking up at him. 

"It's late," he explained, reasonably. "They could make a round in the girls' dormitory." 

She smirked. "I need just one more bad mark to break last year's record." 

He shifted beneath her, not even trying to hide his impatience. He was in control. He had to keep control. "Leave, please. I have something to do." 

Victoria moved onto her side, propping herself on her elbow. "You're kicking me out," she said, her eyebrows arching in surprise. "What a gentleman!" 

"This has nothing to do with you. I just don't like sleeping with another person." 

"I had no intention of sleeping here. But you should know that there are people in this school who would pay to spend the night with me." 

"I don't doubt it." 

She pouted. "You're a strange boy." 

The adjective made Lex stiffen. He felt the urge to hurt her, in order to reestablish his hard-won and long-desired normality. 

"Look who's talking, you high-class punk." 

She had recently had her hair cut short and dyed bluish-black in order to shock her father when she went home for the upcoming summer vacations. For the same reason she had previously had her nose and navel pierced, and her belly and her left buttock tattooed. She said she would have her clitoris pierced if she could ever find a way to let her father know. Lex sometimes wondered how she had managed to show him the tattoo on her buttock. Perhaps she went around her father's house in a thong. 

Victoria didn't seem to take offence, and instead surprised him a laugh. 

"That's me, no doubt. But someone told me this haircut makes me look like Winona Ryder." 

"Sure. Winona's weird sister, the one her parents abandoned as a child." 

"Go fuck yourself. By the way, you know, I've always thought you should have something done, too." 

"You mean a new haircut?" 

She slapped his arm. "Fuck you." 

"You're repeating yourself. I take it you've got a thing for it." 

She ignored him pointedly. "I was talking about a tattoo. Or a piercing, maybe. On your tongue. Yeah, a piercing in the tongue. I find that so exciting. Just imagine how it could look on you, since you're already sexy as you are." 

Sexy. She found him sexy. A woman. How could that be? 

_He's said to be completely_... _How do you say_? _Hairless. Everywhere_! _It's creepy, don't you think_? _He's like_... _like a worm, like_... _like one of those disgusting smooth rats that live underground_. 

"I may do it," he said. Why not? Could it be the right measure of bad behavior? Enough not to go back to the US, but not enough to be expelled? He wanted to stay at Holy Souls. He loved Cool Lex. And still had a lot of things to learn, a lot of girls to fuck, in order to show his father and the world he wasn't a little pussy. In order to prove to everybody, and to himself, that he was normal. "I'll do it for you. But you have to go now. I have to check my e-mail." 

"Oh, sure. I understand, now. All those birthday wishes from your sweethearts." 

"Yeah. And I have to sleep this off. Tomorrow I'm having an exam." 

She gave a snort of derision. "Chemistry. A piece of cake, for you." 

He stared at her meaningfully. _Get the fuck out. Please_. 

"Okay, okay, I'm going." 

She slid out of the blankets and picked up the clothes she had haphazardly strewn all over the place. Just looking at that mess got on his nerves. She dressed quickly. He probably shouldn't have felt that relieved. Shouldn't have sensed that familiar tension at the bottom of his stomach, while he had been fucking her. Shouldn't have felt so terribly depressed and dirty and ashamed immediately after the orgasm. As if he had left his body during the act, only to plummet hard to earth as soon as it was finished. Even with her. And yet, he had liked it. He was sure he had liked it. 

"You have to learn how to behave with girls," she mumbled, as she adjusted her miniskirt. 

"Are you going to come back?" he asked. 

"Tomorrow night?" she proposed. 

He sat up against the pillow, curving the corner of his lips in an ironic smile. "My behavior seems to work perfectly on you." 

She smiled back. "I'm a slut, you know. I was talking about the other girls. The good ones." 

"What makes you think I'm interested in them?" 

"Oh, please," she shrugged, combing her hair. "All men are interested in good girls, although they enjoy fucking the nasty ones. They basically look for a maternal figure." 

He thought it over for a while. The idea made him feel nervous, so he simply discarded it. 

"I assure you: I'm not into good girls. I'm just into good sex." 

She chuckled. "Then you can count on me." 

In spite of the lightness of her tone, it seemed to Lex a shadow lay behind her big brown eyes. He felt a little ashamed of the way he was treating her. After all, he was really grateful to this girl, and probably would always be, for having shown him he could be a real man, not just a sex toy of uncertain gender. 

Perhaps he could make up for his rudeness with a gift. A bunch of tulips? She had drooled over them, when the school had organized a visit to the Euroflora exhibit. Or, better yet, he could buy her a pendant. Girls loved jewelry. Yes, a gold pendant with Nike, the goddess of victory. Perfect. Surely he would find something like that on the Internet. 

"Well, see you tomorrow," Victoria sighed. 

"Yeah, tomorrow." 

She opened the door and exited without worrying about checking the corridor. If he was lucky, some of the other boys had seen her, and tomorrow all the dormitory would know Lex had been with her. 

Suddenly he frowned, eyeing the depression Victoria had left on the bed. Upset, he reached for it and fussily smoothed the creases. _Ah, better. Much better_. 

As soon as he was satisfied, he rolled out of bed and went to the bathroom. Finally. He couldn't have waited a minute longer. He turned on the shower and climbed into it. The warm, purifying spray welcomed him. He closed his eyes, letting the water rain on his face and into his mouth. Then, took soap and cloth and scrubbed at his skin hard, as if he could wash off even the dirtiness and disgust he felt inside. 

After a good quarter of an hour, he turned off the shower. He pulled on his boxers and T-shirt and sat at his desk. He switched on the laptop to check his mailbox. Nothing. Nothing from Bruce. Nothing from his father. Nothing from anyone. Not that he had really expected to receive anything. He hadn't heard from his father since that anonymous, peremptory message. 

Actually, he had received a birthday gift from LuthorCorp. He knew it because the card had the letterhead printed at the top. It read simply Happy Birthday, typed and unsigned. The legendary efficiency of his father's secretaries. Lionel had probably forgotten to inform his latest he didn't want to have anything to do with his son anymore. 

Beautiful fountain pen, anyway, an expensive Mont Blanc with a pompous _Alexander Luthor_ incised in golden letters. It would join the collection of fountain pens he had accumulated during the years and stored in a drawer in Metropolis, all still enclosed in their precious cases. One day he might put them up for auction on eBay. 

He wondered if his father would give him news before the end of the school year. Wondered if Lionel would send for him or leave him at Holy Souls. Alone, while everybody else was away. With their parents. With their friends. 

There had been times in the past when Lex had felt relief at his father's absence. Now, more and more often, he found himself looking back on the brief periods they had spent together. Because even the bad memories, when they managed to creep into his mind, seemed to him less terrifying, less unnatural than that appalling indifference. A father couldn't forget his son. Couldn't. Could he? 

He went to the Wayne Enterprises site. He had lost Bruce's number and e-mail along with his notebook at the hospital. The phone number was unlisted. Lex had tried to contact Bruce several times through Wayne Enterprises, but the operator always said Mr. Wayne wasn't there, or couldn't be bothered and she couldn't give his private number to strangers. 

He had left her the school's number, asking to be called back. Bruce hadn't done it. Fearing his father had ordered the school to intercept his phone calls, he had bought a second-hand cell phone from another boy and repeated the humiliating procedure. Again, he had waited in vain for Bruce's call. 

Bruce must have been pissed off because Lex had kicked him out before his father. Or else Lionel had managed to discourage him. Or, more likely, the Luthors had shocked him. 

Yes, that must be it. Lex remembered how his friend had behaved after the Christmas episode. He was clearly confused and upset. And then, that awful scene at Saint Joseph. Bruce must have thought Lex was a total lunatic. How ironic. Bruce didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore because he thought he, Lex, was insane. 

He wondered if Bruce had received his birthday present. Lex had found it in the parcel of his belongings sent to England by Saint Joseph boarding school. He hadn't had the time to give the gift to Bruce, before Lionel dragged him away. It was really a funny toy. A portable lie detector that sensed stress levels in a voice and then displayed an apple to indicate the truth or a worm for a falsity. Luckily, it claimed to have just an 84% accuracy rate. Safe for Lex. He had tried and managed to deceive it. A test. Just to be sure. He was convinced Bruce had liked it. Would have liked it. Whatever. Since Lex wasn't allowed to leave Holy Souls, except for school trips, he had asked an older boy to go to the post office and mail the box to the USA. He hoped he had really done it, and hoped the parcel had gotten to Bruce and been opened. It was pathetic, wasn't it? All that hope and energy wasted on a boy who surely now only despised him. 

There was a window for asking information, on the homepage of wayneenterprises.com. He had already sent two or three messages, with "Lex to Bruce" as the subject line. Just a few formal lines to let Bruce know his e-mail, because he didn't know who would read the letter. Again, he had received no reply. 

He stared at the blank window on the computer screen. What use would it be now to write another message? Hadn't he humiliated himself enough? A flash of the mental institution, of what he had done in order to hear Bruce's voice again. It made him want to puke his guts out. Had Burke told his father? Gross. Lex turned those thoughts off. 

Stared at the blank window and, feeling a vague contempt for himself, began punching the keyboard. _Dear Bruce, haven't heard from you anymore. I just wanted_... 

He wanted to feel his strong arms around him again. Wanted to feel protected and cherished as he couldn't with anyone else but him. As he hadn't felt anymore since his mother's death, since Pamela's departure, until he had met him. 

He realized his fingers had started to trace slow circles on his stomach. A part of him felt disgusted and would have stopped it, but the other part proved more determined. He let his hand slip into the opening of his boxers. A second later he was caressing himself, eyes closed, his body slumped against the back of the chair. _Fuck. Victoria would appreciate this_. 

He pictured Bruce straddling him, his black shirt unfastened. He thought of his strong hand touching him, his fingers running over Lex's chest, his wet tongue on his neck, his jaw, his lips. He got hard as imagined Bruce pushing inside his mouth, ravaging it, holding him against the chair, hurting him, leaving marks on his delicate skin. And suddenly he saw himself thrown on the floor, Bruce over him, spreading Lex's legs, taking him by force. 

A bristly beard against his neck, faint smell of cologne and cognac, and he realized this wasn't Bruce anymore. Lex's chest was heaving, his breath turned into a pant. He stroke himself rougher, while the stink of urine filled his nostrils, and he found himself in a filthy, narrow alley, raped by a group of unknown older men, hitting him, holding him still, savagely fucking his mouth and his ass. 

Lex started bucking into his fist, his head tipped back. Pumped faster, faster, as he felt he was filling up, felt it was almost time, felt his whole body go tight and finally pulse with release. He came hard, harder than with Victoria, hard as he only came when he was alone. And he felt damn good. For an instant. Then suddenly, again, that freezing sadness washed over him, as if he had been stunned by a paralyzing gas. And he realized the hot, sticky come was in his briefs, on his palm. Gross. Gross. He jumped up and rushed into the bathroom, turned on the tap, soaped, washed, rubbed his hand hard until he was sure no trace of the slimy, disgusting thing was on it anymore. Then he pulled off his boxers and used them to clean himself, shuddering, moaning. 

He had wanted this. He had done this by means of those obscene, depraved fantasies. And the realization struck him like lightening. He felt it burn throughout his body. He wasn't normal. He wasn't normal at all. He would never be normal. He was insane. Sick. Wicked. His father and Bruce were right to despise him. He should still be locked up. They should have thrown away the key. 

What a surprising revelation. What a gift. 

He laughed to himself. "Happy birthday, Lex." 


End file.
